Mason’s lips twitch. “Don’t worry, Abe,” he says as he stands up. “I’m not horning in on your action.”
Abe’s cheeks turn scarlet. It’s sort of cute how his complexion is so pale that it shows all his emotions.
“I’m not…” he stammers. “I mean, we’re not…”
“I have a boyfriend, you know,” I say to Mason, sticking out my chin. “At another school.”
“Is that so?” Mason doesn’t wipe that grin off his face. I wish Abe would slug him, especially since he looks like he’d like to.
“Get out of here, Mason,” Abe says to his roommate. He doesn’t lay a finger on him—it’s pretty clear that Abe isn’t the kind of guy who goes around slugging people.
Mason is still smirking as he relocates himself to a desk in the back of the library. I notice he’s one desk away from little Sasha, and he stops to talk with her for a minute before gettingto work. I’ve yet to have a successful conversation with Sasha, so it’s surprising to seeanyonetalking to her, but especially Mason.
Abe sets down his books on the table and slides into the seat across from me.
“I thought we could start with the heart,” he says.
“Fine by me.”
“Or we could do the lungs, if you’d prefer?” he offers.
I don’t have a great understanding of the heart, but it’s probably no worse than anything else in the thorax. I’m equally confused about everything.
“Let’s just do the heart.”
Abe nods and pulls out a stack of index cards. He lays them down on the table, and I see that he’s drawn color-coded diagrams of the heart. I gasp.
“Wow,” I say.
“What?”
“I just…” I grin at him. “I didn’t realize you were such a huge nerd.”
Abe looks down at his nerdy index cards then back up at me. “I’m not a nerd! I’morganized.”
I shake my head at him. “That’s exactly what a nerd would say.”
He picks up a blank index card and flicks it in my direction. He obviously meant to hit me with it, but the card doesn’t even make it across the table. It just kind of flies into the air then flutters slowly to the ground. Abe and I both watch it then simultaneously bust out laughing.
“Pretty pathetic, huh?” he says.
“The trick is to form it into a plane,” I explain.
I grab another blank index card and form it into a little makeshift paper airplane. I aim it in Abe’s direction, and it hits him directly in the forehead.
“Ouch!” Abe cries, rubbing his forehead. He grabs himself another blank card. “Okay, you’re asking for it, McKinley…”
And then we spend the next thirty minutes making planes out of index cards. I am such a bad influence.
At some point,we get tired of acting like children and start studying for real. It’s intimidating that Abe knows his stuff so much better than I do, but at the same time, it’s motivating. Someone once told me that it’s always better to study with someone who knows more than you do.
If that’s the case, Abe is screwed.
It’s dark out by the time we decide to call it a day. We’re both carrying an armful of books as we head down in the elevator to the parking lot.
“Where’d you park?” Abe asks me.
“Second floor. You?”
